How Gizmodo Escaped Indictment in Last Year’s iPhone Prototype Theft

Greg Sandoval and Declan McCullagh, reporting for CNet:

“What we were looking at was possession of stolen property and whether the evidence supported extortion,” Wagstaffe said. “You can say we were looking at whether their actions supported that they participated in the theft of the phone. We didn’t think it supported either.”

Wagstaffe said, however, that his office’s review of the computers seized from Chen’s home showed the correspondence between Gizmodo editors was “juvenile.”

“It was obvious that they were angry with the company about not being invited to some press conference or some big Apple event. We expected to see a certain amount of professionalism — this is like 15-year-old children talking,” Wagstaffe said. “There was so much animosity, and they were very critical of Apple. They talked about having Apple right where they wanted them and they were really going to show them.”

Shocking.

★ Wednesday, 12 October 2011